


a city sorrow built

by nausicaa_of_phaeacia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Melodrama, Outer Space, Parallel Universes, Prompt Fic, cousyfixit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 08:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16238003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia
Summary: Coulson goes into hiding after some bad things happen. Daisy goes looking for him anywhere she can.





	a city sorrow built

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **#cousyfixit** (prompt: MULTIVERSE/S).  
>  Sorry this got a little melodramatic. I was listening to The National and it's midnight.

She‘s gotten good at this, hopping planets, sifting through foreign data in foreign languages and foreign codes, looking for something familiar, a hint, anything. Sometimes it feels like she‘s a character from a comic book, forced to search the galaxies for some kind of Holy Grail. The smirk that goes with this feeling makes all the pain a little bit more bearable.

It takes her months to find even a trace of him. Not that he isn‘t good at hiding, he is. But then again, she doesn‘t know what happened to him. He could just as well have been taken. He could be dead for all she knows. She keeps telling herself it‘s not the first time she‘s thought that. And she doesn‘t even know if she‘s looking in the right universe. Parallels are infinite.

It‘s one of Coulson‘s vintage espionage fountain pens. She‘d know it anywhere. It screams his name, lying there on the street trader‘s dusty little carpet, in a little alley at the far end of the colony. She doesn‘t know what to trade him, gives him one of her old glittery bracelets. It hurts less to part with it than she expected; it holds memories, it remembers who she was all those years ago – but so does she. 

She examines the pen, like it‘s the most important thing in the world, like it‘s a treasure worth exhibiting at a museum just because it used to be his. She wishes she could be more scientific about this, but the only thing she can tell is that Coulson‘s fingerprints are still on it (he writes with the pen resting against his ring finger, have you seen anyone else do that?) ... and that he has, in fact, used the secret weapon function after touching something covered in icing sugar. The little detail reminds her of better times, times where going to the diner at four a.m. used to be the highlight of her week if it was with him. It makes her moan in frustration.

But of course she spends the next few days trying to find out where the heck in this godforsaken place Coulson could have had anything with icing sugar on it. There are two possibilities, one‘s a little cake stand at the larger, more official market, the other‘s some sort of nightclub that offers motel rooms. It‘s by chance that she discovers it; she‘s just looking for a place to stay overnight with her shrunken budget of terrestrial objects to trade. The matron takes her hula girl, says it‘s a perfect representation of what the girls are supposed to do all night. Daisy swallows her response as the woman offers her a welcome drink: a colourful cocktail with an umbrella, icing sugar floating on its surface. 

She gulps down the drink – less unpleasant than expected –, then runs upstairs, cutting the corners, still licking sugar from the corner of her lips.  
There it is.  
Room 32, with the 2 hanging at a weird angle, suggesting it might be a 5. 325.  
Coulson‘s sentimental like that. She can‘t deny him a smile.

She doesn‘t knock.

When she finds some other guy with a girl in his lap, she bursts into tears. Coulson was here, she‘s sure. He isn‘t now, and there are no other clues Daisy can think of that could even vaguely point into his direction. The girl sends her a compassionate look, points at a bowl of strawberries on the nightstand while riding the guy. Daisy briefly raises a hand as a thank-you, carefully closes the door as she leaves.

She spends the night at the room she traded the hula girl for anyway, honours some memories.

As she leaves the establishment when it‘s barely dawn, hair tousled, shirt buttoned up wrong, he‘s sitting on the stairs in the front.  
"No," she says, like this is unfair, like she doesn‘t know what to do, like it‘s both disappointing and the thing she‘s longed for the most.  
"I‘m sorry," he says.

She‘s got no air left in her lungs, sits down next to him.  
"I –"  
I‘ve been looking for you, Coulson, where the hell have you been, you could have been dead and buried in a ditch for all I know, why the fuck didn‘t you tell me where you were going, say her eyes.

"I couldn‘t," he says.  
Her eyes dart up, meeting his. "What do you mean?"  
"I couldn‘t let you follow me. I didn‘t want you to look at me, not after all I did. Not after killing –"  
"I have always seen you the same way."  
He swallows. His voice gets really small.  
"What do you mean, always?"  
"Yeah, always. I mean … technically. You know." She makes a vague gesture.  
She knows for a fact he‘s smirking now, even if she doesn‘t dare look at him.

"So you decided to check out some parallel universes."  
He‘s trying to make it sound light-hearted, but she hears how this is only dawning on him now, and she kind of wants to grab his hands so as to make sure he doesn‘t run away. She doesn‘t want him to feel guilty.  
Coulson swallows again.  
"How did you find me?"  
She smiles, waits for him to look at her as she tells him, "The fountain pen. The icing sugar."  
He tries to hide a smile and fails. He‘s never going to be able to hide a smile from Daisy.

"I should have known," he says, like he‘s trying to be stern with her, but she knows he‘s just putting up a front, trying not to seem embarrassed.  
She waits for a moment, sensing there‘s something else.  
"I‘m sorry I ran."  
Her fingers find his. Don‘t be silly, she almost says, but then it‘s something else that comes out, and she‘s glad it did. "You didn‘t need to run."  
He‘s paralyzed. She can almost hear his heartbeat.  
She repeats it. "You didn‘t need to run, Coulson. Not from me."  
And he‘s finally crying, like his whole body has been waiting for an opportunity to cry. He‘s actually shaking, so she hugs him. She‘s patient, lets him cry as much as he needs to, one hand on the back of his neck.

When it‘s over, she shyly tilts his chin up with her thumb so she can look at him.  
"Hey, you."  
He blinks, wipes away a few tears with the back of his hand.  
"Thanks," he says, and it means so many things. Thanks for coming after me. Thanks for telling me I don‘t need to hide anything from you. Thanks for putting your hand where you did.  
He‘s exhausted, puts his head on her shoulder.  
"Don‘t run again, okay?"  
She can feel him nod, places a small kiss on the top of his forehead where her lips can reach.

**Author's Note:**

> Definitely not what I intended to write but here we are.  
> Thanks for reading :)
> 
> The title is from The National's _Sorrow_.


End file.
